


Bittersweet

by pastaforeverymeal (iwritetrollfics)



Category: Creepypasta - Fandom, Slender Man Mythos
Genre: BDSM, Bloodplay, Clown Smut, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, F/M, Lemon, Physical Abuse, Shameless Smut, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:02:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6673651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritetrollfics/pseuds/pastaforeverymeal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laughing Jack finds a new toy, and he fully intends on breaking it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My Newest Toy

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, kiddies. ;o} Let's have some creepy, clowny fun.

"Ma'am, we got no body, no blood, no casings, no gun, and no sign of forced entry. Now, you say that this clown guy broke into your house –'scuse me, your employers' house-, and yet there are no busted windows or doors. And then you shot him, but there ain't no blood or casings or gun around, and the neighbors didn't hear any shots. Have I got the story right?"

"It's not a _story!_ " Ruby almost screamed. "He was there, twice! I did shoot him-" The detective gave her the same look that the officers earlier had. He didn't believe her, and that wouldn't change no matter what she said. Her account sounded far-fetched, she'd admit, but she swore that every bit of it was true: an evil clown had appeared in the house and had tried to kill one of the twins. The only real evidence of the clown that she had, though, was the hard candy that she told the police had been stashed in the boys' room.

"Where did you get this?" Ruby had asked when she'd found the sweets earlier that day. The children had exchanged glances and shuffled their feet. "Zach," Ruby said, giving one of the five year-olds a serious look that read "no cartoons if you don't tell me." He looked down at the floor and muttered something, and his brother elbowed him hard. Ruby immediately grabbed the other boy and pulled him to her with a stern look.

"Zeke, stop it. Zachary Porter, you tell me where you got this candy or we're not going to the carnival."

At that threat, a distressed look twisted the boy's face. He pulled at his red curls and gave a mournful groan, stomping his little socked feet. Ruby saw Zeke look up at her out of the corner of her eye; Zeke was tougher than Zach, a lot meaner when he wanted to be and a lot less prone to tears, but she knew that the threat had upset him too. The carnival was all either of them had talked about since they'd seen the flyer at the grocery store. Still, the boys refused to answer her.

"All right, then," Ruby said. "No carnival." Zach let out a wail as she bent down and scooped all of the candy out from under the bunk bed, and for a moment Ruby felt like she was being too harsh. There was no telling where they got the candy from, though. It could be dangerous, make them sick or worse. And even if it was just candy, she really didn't want Justine and Louis to come back and find their kids' mouths riddled with cavities. It couldn't hurt to be a little overprotective.

Zeke didn't cry, but folded his arms and glared at Zach as nasty as he could when Ruby found more candy in the toy box and raked it into a pile. After nannying Zeke and his brother for almost a year Ruby knew very well what would happen as soon as she left the room, and so she took the tearful Zach by the arm and led him away with her, the candy pouched in the lower half of her shirt.

"Don't you _dare_ slam that door," she warned Zeke as she left. The boy turned his glare on her, but did as she told him. Even once she was downstairs there was no _bang_ of the door closing, but it was certainly shut when she went to look. Ruby was more than surprised. Zeke and Zach were identical twins, but they couldn't be more different on the inside; while Zach cried when he was upset, Zeke responded with a temper that rivaled a bull's. More often than not after a punishment like this, that temper showed itself in door-slamming or toy-throwing, or bruises on Zach's arms and shoulders when Ruby left the two alone together. She had dared the long-distance charges once or twice to call the boys' parents about it all, but they dismissed it as simple roughhousing. Ruby certainly saw that it wasn't that, but it was difficult to argue with parents that were digging in catacombs halfway around the world and talking to you at a charge of almost three dollars per minute. Separating the twins proved a thousand times easier.

She sat Zach down in the living room and turned on the TV, hoping that cartoons would distract him until dinner time. He sniffled and cried a little about the candy, but stayed put when she went into the kitchen to throw it away.

Before she dumped them into the trashcan, Ruby held a couple of them up to inspect. The bright little candies weren't like anything she'd seen before, wrapped in paper instead of plastic and missing a brand name. They smelled good, like fruit, and on a whim she opened one of them up. The purple sweet winked up at her in the light, its tangy grape scent making the hinges of her jaw ache wantingly.

She dropped it, and all of the other candies, into the garbage.

Zeke didn't come downstairs later when she called him for dinner, but that didn't surprise her much; his tantrums could last for hours when he got angry enough. She debated carrying his grilled cheese up to him, telling herself that he was choosing to go hungry if didn't come down, but she was too soft-hearted for her own good. Zeke hadn't seemed to warm up to her much since she'd first started taking care of him, unlike Zach who oftentimes felt attached to her at the hip. She wanted Zeke to like her, and so she found herself putting his dinner on a plate and slipping one of the special juice boxes from the top of the fridge to bring him. Zach was too busy munching his own dinner and chattering at Dora the Explorer to notice.

Ruby was halfway up the stairs when she heard giggling coming from the boys' room. She smiled to herself, hoping that Zeke's good mood would stick once she opened the door. Then, something else reached her ears that made her stop on the top step. It was another voice, much too deep and coarse to be Zeke play-pretending. Eyes wide, Ruby shuffled closer to the door and listened again, but it was only Zeke talking. Maybe his little TV was on?...

"He's bad at secrets," the boy was saying. Ruby heard him rummage around in his toy box. "He was gonna tell, even after he promised."

"You aren't going to tell, are you?"

Ruby swallowed when the second voice sounded again, low and lulling with a British accent. She put the plate down on the runner rug as softly as she could and then lowered herself to the floor, peeking underneath the bedroom door to see if he was indeed talking to his TV like Zach downstairs. She saw Zeke moving to sit down on the carpet, a toy police car in his hand.

"I won't tell," he said, his high voice soft and secretive. "I don't want you to go away. I wanna go live at the carnival with you, like you said." The other voice tittered, and then it dropped low and rough:

"Soon enough, child."

Ruby shifted around a little, trying to see the whole room. For a moment it looked as though Zeke was indeed alone, but then a flash of movement by the bunk bed caught her attention. She froze.

A sharp-toed, black shoe with a silver buckle was casually rolling a little toy truck back and forth under its heel.

"Wanna trade cars?" Zeke asked, and the shoe stopped rolling the toy. With a little push, it sent the truck skidding over to him. Zeke giggled and caught it, then pushed his police car over. The car veered off-course and was going to slide under the bed, but then the bedsprings creaked and a set of long, black claws dipped down and scooped it up.

Ruby's mouth gaped. She jumped upright and threw the door open, ready to swoop in and snatch the boy away.

Zeke let out a little scream as Ruby launched herself inside, eyes wild. She looked at the lower bunk and saw the police car lying on its side next to what looked like an indent of where a person had been sitting. Ruby stared at the police car, then at Zeke. The boy stared back at her, his blue eyes huge.

"Who were you talking to?" Ruby whispered. The boy's open mouth closed quickly. He thinned his lips. Ruby came over to him, looking around the room nervously, and knelt down. "Someone was in here," she said to him. "Where did he go?" Zeke lowered his eyes and rolled the toy truck along the carpet. Ruby snatched it away from him, making him jump.

"Zeke, you have to tell me!" she hissed. "Who was that?!"

"Ruby?" Zach called. He was standing in the doorway behind her. "Why's there a juice right here? I didn't get a juice-" The boy stopped talking and looked at the bunk beds, then looked away. Ruby hardly noticed.

"You can have that juice," she told him quickly. "I need to talk to Zeke for a minute-"

"I want that juice," Zeke said, his eyes narrowed, and Zach made a frustrated sound. Ruby tried to ask him again about the person in the room, but his attention was on Zach now. The boys bickered as she went to check the closet, then the window; the child-lock was closed on the latter, and nothing around it was disturbed. She looked around herself in disbelief, her eyes roaming over the unplugged mini TV, the open toy box, the pile of laundry in the corner.

Both boys got quiet when she went over to the bunk bed and looked underneath it, finding nothing. She sat down on the bed and picked up the little police car, turning it over in her hands. It took her a moment to notice that the twins were staring at her.

"What?" she said softly, the hair on her neck prickling at the way that Zach's eyes were bulging out of his head at the space just to the left of her. The little boy opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, but then Zeke jumped upright and ran out of the room. He pushed past his brother and shouted something about the juice box, making Zach shriek and whirl after him.

Ruby stared at the police car for a few seconds longer, ignoring the scuffle that was certainly taking place in the hallway, before she realized that something about the room wasn't quite right. She sniffed the air, something sweet and sugary making her mouth water a little. Her eyes scanned the bed, and she caught sight of a paper wrapper poking out from under the sheets. She pulled the sheets back, revealing a spread of bright candies like the ones she'd thrown away earlier.

She swiped them up immediately and went out into the hallway where Zeke had Zach in a headlock.

* * *

Sleep didn't come easy to Ruby that night. She tossed and turned in her room at the end of the hall, every sound that the house made causing her to sit up sharply. Eventually her mind wore itself out with worry, though, and she drifted off to dream of the carnival.

It was packed with people, like she'd expected it would be, but no one jostled her as they passed. Dusk had just fallen, and all of the lights from the whirling rides, the stall games, and the fun-houses twinkled and spun around her like jewels. She turned her face into the warm breeze, catching the scent of powdered sugar. Her mouth gushed at the thought of funnel cake.

"Ruby!"

She turned around and saw Zach just before he crashed into her legs. He hugged her tightly, grinning upward. His face had been painted like a tiger's.

"Me and Zeke are going to the mirror house!" he said, all but jumping up and down. He gushed about the games he'd played and the rides he'd ridden so far, but Ruby was distracted. She felt eyes on her, and now saw that someone was indeed watching her from across the main walk where people were passing back and forth.

It was a clown. He was tall, towering easily over the crowd by at least a foot. His clothes, from what Ruby could see, were awfully somber for a carnival clown; black and white with not even a spot of color. Even the balloon he was blowing up was black. He stared at her as he began to rapidly twist the thing into shape with his long, clever fingers. Ruby marveled that he didn't pop it, those fingers looked so sharp. A child screamed shrilly in the distance, and gooseflesh rippled over her arms.

"Do you want to go to with me?" Zach asked, and Ruby almost didn't hear him. She watched the clown tie off the balloon animal and hand it to someone too short for her to see. His pale eyes, watching from beneath an unruly mass of black hair, never left hers.

"Sure," she said absently. The clown was smiling at her now. He parted his dark lips, showing her his teeth-

"I'm leaving without you!" Zach shouted. He rushed off then, disappearing into the river of people. Ruby felt a quick shock of fear, forgetting entirely about the clown and that she was dreaming at all, and hurried after the boy, calling his name and telling him to slow down. He kept along as though he didn't hear her, and the only way that Ruby was able to keep track of him at all was by his bright red hair.

There was no line in front of the house of mirrors when Ruby caught sight of it, and no Zeke either. Zach ran right inside without waiting for her, and she hauled after him, now desperately hoping that the other twin was already inside. She would catch up to Zach, and if Zeke wasn't inside there then they would find some sort of security guard or something to spread the word about a missing child. God, she'd never get work as a nanny again if they didn't find Zeke.

"Ruby Ruby!" Zach teased as she stepped into the dimly lit fun house. He already sounded far away.

"Stay where you are, mister!" she called to him in that stern voice that she knew he couldn't ignore. "I mean it, let me catch up!" To her surprise and frustration the boy only laughed, his voice trailing further and further off. Ruby cursed under breath and traced a hand against the mirrored wall to her right, ensuring she wouldn't get lost as she made her way through the house. She yelled to Zach again, but this time he didn't respond at all. Ugh, he was beginning to take after Zeke.

Ruby made a wrong turn or two, but the maze was short. She could already hear music coming from what she was sure was the exit, an old tune that she recognized quickly. It grew louder, and she picked up the pace.

_All around the mulberry bush-_

Ruby turned another corner, frowning when she came to a dead end. She backtracked with her hand against the glass.

_The monkey chased the weasel-_

She took the other path, and the music grew louder again.

_The monkey thought 'twas all in good fun-_

"Zach!" she yelled. "Zeke!"

_Pop! goes the weasel._

Power surged through the caged lightbulbs above her with a high, whining sound, and then the lights went out. Ruby swore nastily as she heard the generator in the building groan its power-down, and then the place was silent. She listened for the exit again, but the music had stopped. Inexplicably, she couldn't hear the crush of people outside either.

"Ruby?" a child's voice called anxiously, and she recognized it as Zeke's. Her heart soared.

"I'm here, baby, it's okay!" she shouted, stepping quickly along the wall again. "Is Zach with you? He went in ahead of me." No answer. "Zeke? Honey, I need you to talk to me or I can't find-" She stopped abruptly as a man's voice began to sing in a hall close to hers.

" _Half a pound of two-penny rice,_

_Half a pound of treacle..."_

"Hello?!" Ruby said. "Hey, do you work here? I need to find the exit. Can you turn the lights back on?" The man laughed at her, his voice turning shrill and near-maniacal before he sang the last lines. Ruby began to sweat as she listened, something about the voice becoming familiar.

"... _That's the way the money goes,_

_Pop! goes the weasel."_

Without a sound from the generator the power flicked on, and Ruby jumped when a shape was suddenly visible at the end of the hall.

It was Zeke. His hair was a mess, his clothes shredded all over. He wasn't wearing any shoes, and there were dark stains around his feet that made bile rise in Ruby's throat. The boy whimpered softly, his little shoulders shaking, and held his arms out to her. Tears streaked his face.

Ruby ran to him. She dropped to her knees and squeezed him up in her arms, crying his name over and over. She asked him how he'd been hurt, what had happened, but he only buried his face in her neck and shook, his skinny arms wrapped around her. Ruby shut her eyes to hold back tears, rocking him back and forth gently.

The power flickered noiselessly off, then on again.

"I've got you," she told the boy softly. She sniffled and kissed his cool cheek, hoping he wouldn't pull away. He didn't; his grip actually tightened around her, but something was wrong.

She wasn't crouching anymore. She was standing, and on her tip-toes at that. Something feathery was tickling her face, and she smelled sugar, thick and sweet. Her eyes opened, finding the mirror at the end of the hall, and she stared, lips parting in silent horror. The person she had her arms around, and who had their arms around her, was the black and white clown. He was stooping to hold her, his nightmarish claws settled around her waist and against her back. Ruby quivered as she watched his head turn slowly in the mirror, felt his lips against her cheek. His breath ghosted coolly across her skin as he snickered:

"No, love. I've got _you._ "

His claws squeezed her hard then, biting right through and coming out the other side.

* * *

Ruby jolted upright, the bedsheets sticking to her in a damp tangle. Without a second thought to whether or not she would regret this later, she kicked the sheets away and rolled out of bed. Her heartbeat thumped unpleasantly in her face, still flushed and beaded with sweat, as she grabbed the handgun Louis had given her out of the nightstand drawer. She checked that it was loaded, like he had shown her, and pulled the hammer back until it clicked.

She was _not_ crazy; that clown was fucking real. She had seen him under the door, heard him talking to Zeke, and goddamnit she wouldn't be able to sleep another minute if she didn't make sure he wasn't in the house again.

It was still late as she stepped out of her room, the only glow in the hallway coming from a little plug-in nightlight by the boys' bedroom door. Ruby's flesh prickled hotly when she saw that the door was shut, not like she'd left it. She stepped lightly forward and twisted the knob, the metal almost slick in her sweaty hand. She threw the door open and lifted her gun.

A great shadow was bowed over Zach's sleeping form, claws spread wide and menacing. The shadow whipped around in surprise when Ruby forced the door, and she caught a flash of silver eyes, wide and gleaming like an animal's in the dark. Ruby shrieked and pulled the trigger, the muzzle flash lighting the room bright as day.

The boys screamed when the first shot woke them, then kept screaming when Ruby fired and fired, emptying the clip into the monstrous clown until he stumbled against the wall and slid down it, leaving a dark streak on the paint. A gurgling sound bubbled from his lips, something that might have been a laugh, and then his head slumped forward. Blood puddled slowly beneath him.

Zach was wailing now, his sheets drawn over his head in terror, but Zeke was still screaming. He tugged his hair, unintelligible words mingling with his screeches. Ruby didn't have the clarity of mind to try to discern what he was saying. She told the boys in a raspy voice to stay in their beds and not look at the clown, and then she was running to call the police.

But then the body was gone, and so was the blood, and the shell casings, and the gun. No proof.

The police took them all to the station and then sent her home without the twins. None of the officers had said it to her, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to take the children home with her until their parents gave the okay. Ruby's heart twisted a little as she wondered whether or not Justine would believe her when she got the chance to explain that a seven-foot tall clown man had mysteriously appeared in her sons' room and tried to kill them, then disappeared without a trace. Part of her gloomily thought that she should go ahead and pack her bags before that phone call.

Zach cried and cried as she hugged him goodbye, even though she gave him a sort-of-promise that she would see him again soon. Zeke stared hollowly at the wall, giving no indication that he heard her telling him that his aunt was driving in from Tuscaloosa to pick them up. Ruby tried to give him a hug, but he cringed away from her and buried his face in his hands. The policeman acting as Ruby's escort home narrowed his eyes suspiciously at that and told her they'd best be on their way.

They rode in silence, and within minutes the policeman was pulling up to the curb. He let Ruby out and sped off, leaving her to wander up the dark drive alone. She stopped a good distance from the front door and mentally wrung her hands trying to decide whether or not she would go in. The police had said they hadn't found anything, but she didn't believe it. She would have to see for herself.

The doorknob wouldn't turn when she tried it; thank god that at least the officers had locked the door behind them. She fished the keyring out of her sweatpants and went in. All of the lamps were still on from the search, giving her some small comfort as she cautiously scanned the kitchen and living room for life. Nothing.

Padding as softly as she could, Ruby slipped into the kitchen and took a carving knife from the block on top of the fridge. She almost went to make sure that nothing else sharp had been taken out of the kitchen before she realized how ridiculous the idea was; if he really wanted to cut her up, the clown certainly didn't need a knife to do it. Her back burned a little, and she flinched at the memory.

The boys' door was open, allowing the choppy light of the ceiling fan fixture to swipe across the landing in a way that briefly tricked Ruby into thinking that something was moving up there. She crept up the stairs, pausing to look down the hall at her bedroom before moving into the swishing light of the ceiling fan. She could hear the fixture's _click-click_ ing as she leaned around the doorframe.

Ruby's mouth fell open as she ran her disbelieving eyes over the spotless wall, the carpet. The clown was gone and, as the detective had said, so was everything else. An ache stabbed at her temple then, and she clutched her head. She needed to sit down, but not here. Not in this room.

She descended the stairs carefully, rubbing the heel of her hand gently against her pulsing temple. The ache seemed to grow and spread with every step she took, and by the time she made it to the bottom of the stairs she was stumbling. The knife slipped out of her hand, clattering to the wood floor with a sound that made her double over in agony. Someone laughed, and that shrieking noise joined the knife's clanging to echo around in her skull and threaten to burst it. She reeled toward the couch, on the hair-thin line of vomiting or passing out from the pain as the laughter howled louder and louder, and missed the furniture by an arm's length. The floor came up under her hard, and that was all she could take before her vision was swallowed up.

* * *

Ruby came to groggily that morning in the same spot she'd fallen, her face mashed into the rug and a pool of her own spit. She groaned, shifting slowly and feeling out the bruises she'd earned from the fall. Her head still throbbed a little, but nothing like last night. She flexed her fingers and felt something in the palm of her right hand. Her eyes rolled slowly over, and she dragged the thing up in front of her face.

It was a red lollipop with a little card attached to it by a ribbon. Ruby lifted the card and squinted at the spidery scribbles on it, finally making it out to say, _For my newest toy_. Her brow furrowed. She flipped the card over quickly and mouthed along with the inky cursive she found there:

_I like this game you've started, sweets,_

_D'you think you can keep it up?_

_You've set the bar quite high for me,_

_So don't cry when I play rough._

**_-Laughing Jack_ **


	2. Laughing Jack

Ruby only barely stopped herself from calling the police. After reading that awful calling card, she had leapt straight for her cell phone and run out onto the lawn with every intent to alert the authorities. It was early, around seven o'clock, and cold as hell since it was December. The wind cut through her clothes and was, in truth, what shocked her back to reality; she was about to call the police over a note and a lollipop, and something told her that both things would disappear the instant she tried to show them to anyone.

She'd shuffled around on the frosty driveway for a little bit, debating on whether or not she should go back into the house. Part of her was certain that the clown was in there, waiting for her. The other part wondered if she was losing her goddamn mind.

It wasn't long before an icy drizzle made a decision for her and sent her scurrying back into the house. She slipped inside and leaned against the door, damp and shivering. The lollipop and the card were gone from behind the couch when she happened to glance that way. Christ, maybe she was losing her mind. Maybe all of this was just some sort of horrible, stress-induced hallucination. She had a lot to be stressed about, and this wouldn't be the first time her anxiety had gotten to her. Not ever to this degree, of course, but she'd had awful attacks in the past, even heard her mother talking to her. That had been a hoot to explain to her psychiatrist, that she was hearing dead people. Ruby chuckled bitterly at the memory.

The more she thought about it all, the more sense it made that everything was a terrible fabrication by her overtaxed mind. It was all the stress. She had, what, a couple thousand dollars saved for nursing school? She would be nearly thirty by the time she had the money to apply. And Zeke, god love him, he drove up her a wall with his temper. He was by far the most difficult kid she'd ever been a nanny to, defying her seemingly just for the sake of defying her, and no matter what she did he made it a point to let her know that she was never going to be his buddy.

Ruby looked around herself at the enormous, empty house. She could remember the first time she'd laid eyes on the place, and how her mouth had gone slack. The agency she'd worked with before Justine and Louis began paying her privately had told her the place was nice, but its sheer size and luxury was nothing she could be prepared for. The realization that she would be living in such a house had thrilled her into a euphoric daze then. Now, all it did was make her feel small and inadequate.

It was about two o'clock in the morning in Bucharest, but Ruby imagined that Justine wouldn't mind being woken up. She called her on the house's landline (something about cell calls being more expensive), and Justine picked up almost immediately. Their conversation was brief, out of habit, but all of the needed information was exchanged. Yes, Ruby was fine. Yes, she knew that the twins were going to stay with their aunt for a little while. No, she didn't think she was in any danger of someone breaking into the house again. No, she didn't think it was necessary to go stay with the twins and their aunt. No, no, no, everything was fine.

" _Ben_ , okay," Justine finally relented, her heavy accent sounding twice as thick over the phone. "Be careful if you stay. Make all of the doors and windows to be locked. The pistol; you know where to find it, _ouais?_ In the little table? _"_ Ruby hesitated at that; she had thought earlier that maybe she had imagined Louis ever giving her a gun. Apparently that part was real.

"Yeah, I know where to find it."

"Good, good. Be so careful. You will call me if anything else happens?" Ruby assured her that she would. Justine said something else then, but static buzzed over her words. The buzzing went on until the line clicked and died, and Ruby put the phone back on the receiver. She rubbed at her temples and started for the kitchen to dig out the aspirin. She was going to medicate up, and then she was going to get some real rest, preferably not in a crumpled heap on the floor.

* * *

Ruby dreamed lucidly of the carnival again. It made her uneasy to think that maybe she was preparing to repeat the same nightmare, but when Zach didn't run up and grab her legs she relaxed a little. Organ music pealed sweetly in her ears from the rotating merry-go-round while she scanned the throng of people for the clown, but he was nowhere in sight either. No clown, no Zach. Different dream. A stall game caught her attention as it whooped behind her, flashing brightly, and she turned to see a group of children getting ready to play a water-gun target game. Her eyes lit up, and she hurried over.

"How much?" she asked the short, bearded carny running the stall, then halted in surprise when she saw that it was a twelve year-old boy with a fake beard tied to his face. He tipped his too-big porkpie hat at her and waggled his eyebrows, looking more than precious in his baggy pinstripes and vest.

"For you, sweetheart? No charge." He gestured her to the last free seat and Ruby took it, surprised and pleased.

Night fell quickly. She wandered from game to game, stall to stall, amazed that the fairground stretched so far. Once or twice she heard a familiar tune that had her glancing around herself, but it would be gone as quickly as she would notice it. She chalked it up to paranoia, because this dream carnival was certainly a different one. Momentarily forgetting that she was dreaming, she'd been startled to realize that nowhere, not even behind the stalls to run them, was there an adult. Everything was operated by children, some that looked no older than five, and the customers were children too.

Something that wasn't necessarily different than the last dream, but strange to her nonetheless, was that everything in this carnival was free to her. She watched others pay for their cotton candy and dart throws, but every time she offered her own money it was rejected. "Guests don't pay," a couple of darling little carnies had informed her as they pushed a funnel cake into her hands. Ruby didn't quite understand that logic; weren't they all guests? But she accepted the gifts without questioning anything. Free funnel cake? The only response that should warrant was a "Yessir. Thank you, sir."

She finished her funnel cake in record time, knowing full well and embracing the fact that she would have a horrible bellyache later, and went for a second round of cotton candy before following a crowd of kids to a big top tent at the edge of the carnival. It was an impressively massive thing, black and white with streamers and flags fluttering atop its posts. Ruby wasn't sure what was inside, but all of the children seemed excited. She waited politely in line when the crush of kids reached the ticket booths, though she was fairly certain that the carny running it wouldn't ask for her money. She was right.

"Evenin', Miss Ruby," a gap-toothed girl greeted her brightly when she stepped up to the glass divider. "Go on in. The ringmaster's got a front-row seat for ya." _The ringmaster, huh?_ Ruby anticipated a tiny child in an ill-fitting top hat and giggled, the buzzing energy of the crowd and the sugar finally getting to her.

It was dim and noisy inside the tent. The wooden bleachers that surrounded the center ring were packed so tightly with children that Ruby could hear the supports groaning. Thankfully, the special seat that a carny boy pointed her to was a little chair placed at the very edge of the ring, away from the jostling, yammering children and the bleachers that looked as though they could collapse at any second. She was almost to her chair when she saw something sitting on the seat, and her stomach twisted into a knot.

It was a red lollipop and a card.

_No, no, absolutely not._ Without preamble, Ruby turned promptly around and walked right back up the aisle to the exit _._ She slowed when a group of children stepped out to block her path.

"The show's about to start, miss," one of them told her slowly as though she was the child and he was the adult. "You gotta go sit. Ringmaster's rules." Ruby ignored him and kept coming. If they tried to fence her in, she was big enough to push them out of her way. She didn't necessarily want to bully a group of kids to the ground, but by god she wasn't going to stay in this tent another minute, and she opened her mouth to say so. Just as she did, the tent's lighting shut off with a loud snap, like someone had flipped a giant switch. No light shone through the tent flaps, and Ruby realized that all sound had been hushed inside and out.

"No," she whispered, completely unware that she was vocalizing the thought. She threw the cotton candy aside and surged forward, determined to leave the tent, and a dozen cold little hands grabbed at her as she ran into the blockade of children. Their strength caught her completely by surprise, and she was shoved backward so hard that her feet left the ground and she landed on the flats of her shoulder blades. The breath socked out of her as she collided with the dirt, and she rolled on her side, coughing and wheezing. Another loud, snapping sound had her rising up as best she could to see that a spotlight had come on and was beaming down in the center of the ring.

And there stood her nightmare clown, in all his monochromatic glory. He flung his long, ragdoll arms into the air, laughing and turning a circle. The sudden, delighted screams of the child crowd were deafening.

"Welcome, welcome, boys and girls!" he bellowed over the noise. "Tonight we've prepared a special performance for your entertainment, something the likes of which you've never seen! Tonight, be amazed, be enchanted, be _shocked_ as our guest makes herself known to you! _Spotlights!"_

Ruby lost sight of the clown as a blinding light flashed into her face. She threw an arm over her eyes, streaming with tears from her painful landing, and stumbled upright. It was then that she heard a grotesque hissing and growling begin to cut through the children's cheers, growing in volume to a hellacious roar by the time her eyes had finally adjusted to the light. When she could see, she brought her hands to her face and half-screamed into her fingers.

All around her, the children in the bleachers had been transformed into monsters, butchered, undead things with gaping eye sockets and missing limbs. They hissed and clawed at her from their seats, and Ruby just barely avoided getting her hair snagged by a little boy leaning down to her who had a rusty nail the size of a railroad spike in his head. A prominent growling behind her made her turn, and she saw the group of children at the exit advancing on her with their gory hands raised. The boy who had told her to sit down was in front, and there was something dangling from his teeth that looked an awful lot like shredded flesh.

Ruby shrieked as railroad spike boy tried another swipe at her hair, actually brushing it with the tips of his fingers this time. There was nowhere to go but toward the ring, toward the clown, but the immediate danger of being ripped apart by zombie children didn't let her dwell too much on all of that. She ran between the bleachers, ducking under and batting away the groping hands that snagged at her clothes and hair. The clown cackled with laughter as a pair of girls with fishhooks through their eyelids grabbed hold of her sweater and nearly yanked her into the bleachers. Ruby ripped her arms out of the clothing at the last minute, leaving the children to tear it apart as she staggered into the ring.

And just like that, the tent fell quiet.

Ruby watched apprehensively, her heart banging against her ribs, as the clown folded his terrible claws behind his back and began to circle her. He moved almost like a marionette, his head bobbing lazily atop his stretched form with every step he took. He was even taller than she remembered, over six feet even as he hunched his feather-covered shoulders. A long pull-string with a ring on the end, like the kind found on the backs of toys, dangled from between his shoulder blades, swaying as he moved.

_Laughing Jack,_ Ruby thought, remembering the signature on the note.

She turned stiffly with the clown as he circled, the muscles in her legs locked with the urge to bolt. When he moved especially close she caught the scent of smoke and powdered sugar, and her mouth watered despite her tension.

_Not real. None of this is real._

"This is a dream," she said softly, more to herself than the clown, but he heard her regardless. He came to a stop in his circling and cocked his head at her, his bright eyes flashing with wicked amusement.

"You think so?" he asked, a playful note in his coarse voice. His black lips pulled tighter as his grin stretched.

"Yes." Ruby straightened a little bit, unaware that she had been slouching in on herself in fear. "You aren't real. None of this is." She started as Laughing Jack tossed his head back, displaying a set of knifelike teeth, and laughed. The sound was decidedly hysterical and hollow. It made her skin crawl.

"You don't sound so sure of yourself," he teased. He took a step toward her, and Ruby compensated with a step back before she could stop herself.

"Stay away from me," she told him. She had had dreams like this, lucid ones, where she could control the things that others did. And in this one?

She moved again as Jack took another slow and deliberate step forward, giggling like a naughty child doing something he shouldn't.

No, she had no control over this. The realization slicked her palms with sweat.

"What's the matter, sweets?" Jack snickered. "Don't want to give me another kiss?"

"You're not real," Ruby said again, but her voice wasn't as strong this time. Jack's smile faded, and her sweaty hands began to tremble.

"We both know that's not true."

Another step back. The clown was an adamant vision, something that she had seen and heard twice before now. Ruby imagined that he was the embodiment of something for her, something that she was meant to decipher. Wasn't that how it worked? If she could figure out why she was seeing him, then maybe he would go away.

"Why are you here?" she asked, still stepping carefully backward. Jack blinked, the movement eerily slow and precise. Then his broad smile returned, and he giggled coarsely.

"This is my home," he said, purposely misinterpreting her question. "The question is, why are _you_ here?" Ruby frowned at him, then decided to play along in the hopes of getting some real information.

"Fine. Why am I here?"

"Because we're playing a game," Jack said matter-of-factly. "Didn't you read my card?"

"I don't want to play games with you," Ruby said firmly, crossing her arms. The clown's smile didn't fade one bit. One the contrary, he gave another ear-ringing laugh.

"Of course you do!" he exclaimed. "You started it. Speaking of… Watch this."

Ruby tensed as the clown moved abruptly, expecting that he was going to grab her, but he was only bringing a hand up in front of his face. He held the outside of it flat to her, like he was disguising something, and then wiggled the claws of his other hand over it like he was performing a magic trick. She stared as he withdrew a small, faded box from the empty space behind his shielding hand.

He held it out to her, the black greasepaint smeared around his eyes crinkling with his smile.

"For _you,"_ he said.

Ruby studied the box sitting on the clown's bandaged palm with absolutely no intention of stepping close enough to take it. It was around five by five inches, the wooden exterior looking as though it had been painted at one point. Little smudges, like intricate carvings that had been rubbed smooth over time, scrolled along its edges, and a small crank stuck crookedly out from one side. It looked ancient.

"Take it," Jack said, his sharp smile cleaving all the way up to his ears now. Ruby shook her head.

"No, thanks. I really just want to stop seeing you. What do I have to do?" The clown's smile flickered a little at her words, but then crept an impossible inch wider. The expression didn't reach his eyes, and Ruby could tell by the way he spoke through his teeth that he was losing patience with her.

"You have to take the box."

Ruby eyed the thing again. There was a dark stain on one side of it.

"No," she said firmly. She mustered her courage and looked the clown in the face. "This is a dream, and you're not real, and I'm leaving. I'll figure it out myself." She prepared to take a wide berth around him, having spotted a back tent flap over his shoulder. It was clear of zombie children and fluttered open almost invitingly, though it was dark and sightless beyond. Maybe if she went through it she would wake up.

_"Take the damned box,"_ Jack snarled, the change in his voice snapping Ruby's attention away from the tent flap; it had sounded gruff and distorted, like he was speaking over someone else. It scared the shit out of her.

She ran.

The exit was all the way across the big top, but she didn't hear any footsteps pursuing her. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she thought that maybe she was going to get out of this nightmare unscathed.

She made it almost halfway across the ring before a burst of black smoke appeared in front of her, billowing out to reveal the clown. Ruby screamed and crashed into him, then tried to twist away. His long claws snatched hold of her arm, shredding the sleeve of her shirt and anchoring in the fabric, and she jerked wildly to pull herself loose. Dirt gritted under her heels as she dug for traction and hauled backward, but her spindly assailant had a grip like a machine vise.

He yanked her toward him with enough force to dislocated her shoulder, then threw her to the ground. Ruby's head bounced off the packed dirt, stunning her.

A weight ground itself heavily into her chest, stifling her breathing, and her eyes fluttered to see the clown looming over her. His pointed shoe was settled between her breasts, and when he purposefully crooked his knee and leaned down, Ruby felt her sternum creak.

"Let's try that again," Jack said, smiling and grabbing up her hand. He took hold of her trembling fingers and wrapped them tightly around the old wooden box. As the faded thing was forcibly pressed into Ruby's palm, a white-hot terror struck her. Something inside her was screaming that she was being branded, being _marked._

As if reading her thoughts, the clown laughed darkly.

Ruby cried out and tried to throw the box away, but Jack's hand flashed around hers in a circulation-halting grip. The edges of the box bit into her fingers as he brought his face close to hers, silver eyes glinting with a predatory light.

"You're _mine_ now, sweets."

Ruby screamed as the spotlight above them snapped off, swallowing everything in blackness.

* * *

She woke fighting the bedsheets. Her skin was clammy and damp with sweat again, but when she sat up in the dark she couldn't think clearly. She had just had a nightmare, and one about the clown, she knew, but only pieces of things would come to her: the carnival run by children, the big-top, a wooden box... Everything else was muddy.

Realizing that the room was dark, Ruby fumbled to switch the bed-table lamp on. Had she really slept all day? She had set her phone alarm for noon. Her fingers twisted the switch, and light flooded the room.

She almost sighed with relief when she realized she was alone.

_Not real._

She rested her face in her hands, trying to ignore the strange ache pulsing between her breasts. She hadn't intended to sleep for so long, but there was nothing for it now. Her phone wasn't on the pillow beside her, where she thought she'd left it, and she reasoned that it was probably downstairs.

_Shit._ What if Justine or Louis had called her?

She sat upright and swung her legs out of bed, then jumped as something bumped noisily against the footboard. She made an exasperated sound and drew the sheets back, expecting to see her phone flashing at her, its alarm accidentally set to silent.

Instead, she saw a faded, wooden box.

Ruby stared at the thing for a moment, blinking in the dim light. Then, she extended a socked foot toward the box and nudged it. It bumped against the footboard again, and the little crank played a twanging note.

_You've really lost it, haven't you, honey?_ a familiar voice scoffed. She could almost hear the wheezing laugh. _You should go find your phone. Call a doctor and check yourself in._

"Could be one of Zach's toys," she muttered, ignoring the voice and peering more closely at the box. The boy had spent plenty of time in her room while she hid him away during Zeke's temper tantrums, so why couldn't he have left it in here?

She grunted forward and grabbed the box, flipping it over in her hands. The crank didn't work very well when she turned it, but the buzzing, off-key music board gave her enough of an idea as to what song it was meant to play.

_Pop Goes the Weasel._

A wave of fear-born adrenaline washed over her, heating her cheeks and slicking her palms with sweat as the memory of the house of mirrors came rushing back. She stopped turning the crank for a moment, fearful of what could pop out of the box when the song hit that high note.

_It's just a toy_ , she told herself.

Ruby took a deep breath and turned the crank again. The box twinged pitifully as it hit the _pop!_ bit of the song, and she flinched, but its lid didn't open. She finished turning the crank slowly, thinking that maybe the thing was just old, but the song ended without anything happening. Wasn't the thing supposed to pop open? Curiosity overrode her apprehension, and she poked at the lid until she got a fingernail under it. It offered little resistance, creaking open gently when she lifted it.

The box was turned it this way and that as she looked for the music board that should have been connected to the crank, but found nothing. No secret compartments she could see or feel, just solid wood. She leaned over to hold the thing under the lamp for closer inspection, frowning when she saw that the inside was riddled with tiny scratches, like an animal had been trapped inside and tried to claw its way out.

"Looking for something, gumdrop?"

Ruby screamed at the sight of Laughing Jack looming over the foot her bed, then rolled off into the floor just as he lunged at her. She hit the carpet on her belly and scrambled for the door, the box falling from her hands. As she fled the room, hysterical laughter and the squeaking of bed-springs as the clown jumped around wildly rang in her ears. She tore down the hallway and down the stairs, seeing nothing but the front door in her haze of terror.

_You're going outside?_ the voice wheezed as it laughed at her. _Look at yourself!_

Ruby couldn't help but look down as she ran, realizing that she was only in a baggy t-shirt and underwear, and the distraction was all that was needed to have her slip in a puddle something. She windmilled her arms as her feet slid out from under her. The floor met her back with an impact that thudded through her organs, and she coughed, rolling onto her side and unintentionally pressing her face into something warm.

A heady, metallic scent hit her hard.

Ruby let out a wheezing cry as she hauled herself out of the massive pool of red that was spreading across the entry hall floor. The warm liquid coated her back and side, soaking into her hair and leaving it matted and sticky around her neck and shoulders.

"I'm coming for you, sweets," Jack's singsong voice drifted from the top of the stairs. His two-toned laugh had Ruby slipping and banging her knees against the floor again and again as she scrabbled through the blood to get away. She reached the door and twisted at the deadbolt, but the thing refused to turn.

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck,"_ she gasped, throwing all of her effort at the door. Her heart threatened to burst when she looked over her shoulder and saw the clown's shadow on the wall, taking jolting, marionette-like steps as he came closer.

"Where are you off to?" he cackled, his reaching claws curling around the corner now. "We're playing a game, remember?"

"I don't want to play a fucking game with you!" Ruby screamed, whirling away and banging her fists against the door. "Leave me alone! You're not real, just leave me alone!"

" _Never_ ," a hellish voice growled in her ear.

She screeched, instinctively falling to the ground and throwing her arms over her face in a well-practiced attempt to protect herself. When no claws raked through her, she peered hesitantly through her arms to where she was sure the clown was standing.

But there was no Laughing Jack.

Her eyes darted around the room as she pressed back against the door, finding that the puddle of blood was gone. She frantically felt her hair and face for stickiness, but there was nothing. Had she imagined it?

No. She looked around herself again, still shaking. The room was empty, but there was a palpable energy present, one that made it feel as though someone were standing over her. She caught the scent of sugar, and it was so cloying that it made her mouth gush.

Getting to her feet, she swallowed thickly and turned back to the door, struggling to unlock it. The deadbolt refused to turn, as though some force were holding it in place, and Ruby had to take the switch in both hands to finally twist it. She grabbed for the doorknob and pulled.

A hand reached over her shoulder and slammed the door shut on the cold burst of outside air, and the echo rang through the silent house.

Ruby stared in mute horror at the hand resting flat against the wood, its long, claw-tipped fingers splayed like a giant spider. She felt something shift behind her, and then there was a movement out of the corner of her eye. She whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut as a lock of her hair was lifted away from her head.

"Naughty girl," Jack sang, twirling her hair around his claw. "I didn't say you could go outside."

Ruby twisted to the side, trying to flee. The clown snagged her easily by the arm and dragged her back, forcing her against the door. He pinned her in place with his arms on either side of her head and brought his face close to hers.

"Still don't think I'm real?" he hissed. His jaws split open and Ruby cringed, expecting him to bite her. Instead, a long, black tongue snaked from between his teeth and ran a glistening path up the side of her face. She shuddered and turned away, grimacing as the clown smacked his lips appreciatively.

"Sweet," he cooed. "Like _candy."_

Ruby swallowed again, her breath coming to her fast and shallow. She kept her eyes on the floor beside her as she panted, "Please. Please, let me go." The clown cackled at that, his inhuman eyes flashing bright, before he brought his face so close that his long nose touched hers.

"No," he growled. "Not before I show you how _real_ I am."


	3. Being Naughty

Ruby was readying to shriek for help when the clown grabbed her by the throat. She clawed wildly at his hand, her feet pushing for purchase until he lifted her just high enough to leave her socked toes brushing the floor.

"No," she gurgled, her heartbeat pounding in her face. She saw the clown's smile stretch, the way his greasepaint crinkled around his silver eyes.

" _Yes,"_ he said, his deep voice rumbling with something that sounded like yearning. He leaned in close to her hair and drew a deep breath.

Ruby fought until her vision blurred and her lungs threatened to burst. Her nails raked at the clown's hands, and she could feel a sticky substance running down her arms. It was too cool to be blood, but her other senses were betraying her; the room was growing unbearably bright, and she couldn't hear her heels kicking against the door anymore.

She suddenly felt weightless, and then the world faded to a comfortable dark.

* * *

Jack drank deeply of the girl's pain and fear, slaking his thirst. It had been a good while since he'd last indulged, and, while she certainly wasn't a child, this girl was enough. He ran his tongue over his wicked teeth, wishing that those things that gave him true nourishment were physical and able to be chewed.

" _Kuh,"_ the girl said. It was a soft sound, produced more by the flexing of her throat than by air escaping. Jack ignored her and continued feeding. He knew he was pushing it if he wanted to keep playing with this one, but the longer he fed, the more he found he was enjoying himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd fed from anything but a child. The little ones' fear satisfied the abysmal anger and hate inside him; it quenched those emotions and cleared the blackness in his brain when he felt himself beginning to slip _._ This, though… This was different.

He'd fed from adults before, parents that found him as he was nailing their children to walls or playing in their entrails. He killed some of them, too, but their emotions were rarely satisfying enough to be worth the effort. This girl, this Ruby, however, was so very different. Adult though she may be, her terror was sharp. She was afraid for herself, but there was more than that.

She was afraid for the ginger brats.

Jack opened his eyes and cut a glance at his new playmate, surprised and disgusted by this realization. The girl had finally drawn blood with her little nails, but her gaze was unfocused and her face was swiftly turning a bruised color.

He flexed his long fingers around her throat, cheating his grip a little to give her some air. He had meant to earlier, but he'd been so distracted. The girl didn't suck in a breath the way he expected, and so he loosened his grip further. The girl's fingers slipped away from his hand, and it wasn't until Jack finally brought his face close to hers to see what game she was playing at that he realized her fear had dissipated.

Apprehension crept over him.

"Sweets?" he said. He let go of her throat to hold her by the shoulders, and then gave her a little shake. Her head lolled to one side, and spit dribbled from her lips; they were swollen and a dark blue. Jack's apprehension turned to alarm. He had waited too long to let her breathe.

He shook the girl again, but she stayed limp, and when he pressed an ear to her chest, he heard nothing. He blinked in disbelief.

He had killed her.

Jack released the girl. She slid down the door and crumpled unceremoniously at his feet, her purple face turned upward. The sight filled him with a rage he hadn't known in a long while.

He had expected to get so much more out of his new playmate. She was a fighter, but her fear had been exquisitely strong anyway. She truly loved those children she looked after; her fear for their well-being was stronger than for her own.

How fantastic it would have been to manipulate that.

" _Damn it,"_ he hissed.

Possessed by a sudden desire to hurt something, Jack grabbed the girl up by the throat again. He gave her neck a vengeful wrench; the bones snapped easily, and he let her _thump_ back to the floor.

He would have to find a new playmate now, unless he wanted to slip. He didn't want to go back to the ginger brats; they would only remind him of the girl. He would have to find someone new, some lonely child with no friends or no parents. He would have to convince them to not be afraid of his long claws and sharp teeth.

He would have to convince them that he was their friend.

Jack's black lips curled at the thought. He looked down at the girl again, and his hatred at the idea of seeking out another child to replace her with began to direct itself inward. He had ruined this. If he hadn't been so careless, he could have played with this girl for days. _Weeks._ She could have been something truly special: a playmate who could play his games properly. He had planned so many wonderful things.

Perhaps it would be better to slip for a little while.

Jack pushed his hands despondently into the endless pockets of his trousers, hating himself more and more. With a thought, he summoned the wooden box from upstairs into one of his pockets, intending to start his search for a new child immediately. However, when the box manifested in his pocket, he heard a small clinking sound. He felt around for the source of the noise, then withdrew something cold and smooth.

It was a syringe. Jack squinted as he held it up to examine, watching with vague interest as the dark liquid inside it seemed to creep with a life of its own. It looked oddly familiar, but-

The memory of how he had acquired this thing and what it was meant to do hit him in such a rush that the syringe almost popped out of his claws. He burst into shrieking laughter at his own forgetfulness, setting the windows of the house to rattling. How wonderful his eyeless friend was! He had entirely forgotten about the gift, and perhaps intentionally; he had never intended to use it on his playthings, for what a waste that would be.

But this one was different.

* * *

Ruby woke slowly, her mind slogging to consciousness as though she'd been drugged. Breathing hurt, like her lungs couldn't expand far enough to take the air in, and her neck was painfully stiff.

She opened her eyes and saw that she was in her room. Sunlight filtered weakly through the window, and she could hear birds. Thunder rumbled overhead.

She tried to sit up, and immediately cried out as a heavy ache flooded her body; it was as though every inch of her had been savagely beaten and bruised. She flopped back against the bed, light bursting before her eyes as her head connected with the pillow. Her lungs strained against her shallow breaths.

"Oh, god," she whimpered, her eyes welling with tears. She couldn't turn her head, and so she sought her cell phone blindly, her trembling fingers aching as they slid across the sheets. She didn't understand what had happened to make her hurt like this, but she knew it had something to do with the clown.

That fucking clown.

"Ah, ah, ah," she gasped as her fingers bumped into what felt like her phone. The sudden contact was excruciating, feeling more like she'd bludgeoned her fingers with a bat than merely bumped them against something. She forced her throbbing fingers to curl around the phone and dragged it, inch by painful inch, in front of her face. When she pressed her thumb against the buttons, she sobbed.

"911, where is your emergency?"

"1409," Ruby gasped. "Willow… Willow Creek. Please-"

"Could you repeat that, ma'am?"

"Will… Willow… Creek…" Ruby wheezed, the pain and effort of holding the phone by her ear causing a sheen of sweat to break out across her skin.

"Ma'am, I need you to speak up. Where are you?"

Black smoke curled in front of her face, and she dragged her eyes to the source of it. A whining cry escaped her lips.

Laughing Jack stepped close to the bed and carefully plucked the cellphone from her fingers. He lifted the phone to his head and said something to the emergency dispatcher, but Ruby couldn't hear it over her own suffering moans. He flipped the phone shut and looked down at her.

"Don't do that again," he said, his voice dangerously low.

Ruby panted as the pain finally began to subside to a more tolerable level. She looked up at the clown, her face wet with tears.

"What do you want?" she whispered. Jack cocked his head at her, his tangled mass of hair falling to the side. He smiled.

"I want to play with you. You know that." Ruby squeezed her eyes shut.

"Please," she said. "Please, leave me alone…"

"That's not how it works, sweets."

The mattress creaked and dipped, and Ruby's eyes flew open. The clown had placed his sharp-toed shoe on the edge of the bed and was resting his arm on his crooked knee.

"You're mine," he said, his silver eyes fiendishly flashing down at her, "and we're going to play for as long as I like. Unless…" He adopted an exaggerated expression of thinking. "I could go play with Zach and Zeke instead…"

"No!" Ruby gasped, and Jack grinned triumphantly.

"So, it's decided!" he said. "You'll be my new toy, and that's that. We're going to play however I like, and if you're naughty," he waggled the cellphone down at her, "then I'll eat the little ginger brats. Got it?"

Ruby nodded stiffly, her lip quivering. Her eyes burned, and hot tears welled out to run down into her hair.

"Now, now," Jack cooed in as comforting a way as his coarse voice could manage. He reached down, and Ruby flinched as his claws stroked her hair. "Don't you fret. We aren't quite ready to play, not with you like this."

"What did you do to me?" Ruby said, turning stiffly away from his touch. The clown rested his chin in his palm, looking as though he were deciding whether to answer her question. He blinked, and Ruby realized for the first time that his eyes appeared to be made of glass. She shivered.

"I brought you back," the clown said at last.

"Back from where?"

"Wherever humans go when they die, I suppose."

Ruby sat up on an elbow without thinking, but the pain that followed was nowhere near what she expected; it had faded to a dull ache. "I died?" she whispered. Her mind whirled, and she vaguely remembered Jack pinning her against the front door. A pressuring hand. Hard to breath. Swallowing darkness.

"Yep," Jack said matter-of-factly, taking his shoe off of the bed. He dropped her cellphone on the nightstand.

Ruby stared at the clown as he withdrew the wooden box from one of his pockets and placed it, almost reverently, next to her phone. Her stiff neck and aching lungs were making more sense as each terrible second passed. She had died? Then how the hell was she here now?

"How did you bring me back?" she demanded, her voice almost bold. The clown had to be lying. She desperately wanted him to be lying. Laughing Jack turned his head to her, and his eyes were suddenly too large for his face. They flashed in the dim light.

"None of your business," he said softly, and Ruby felt every ounce of courage leave her. She shook her head in a silent plea as he crept close and bowed menacingly over her, looking for all the world like a puppet cut from its strings.

"What are you?" he asked, and Ruby stared up at him in terror. She was unsure of how to answer.

"I- I don't-"

"You're a toy," Jack said, looming closer. His eyes had become intensely bright. "You're _my_ toy. Say it."

Ruby trembled underneath the clown. "I'm your toy," she whispered.

Jack blinked at her, the rest of him unnaturally still. He took a deep breath, then, and his eyes closed. "Very good," he said softly.

Ruby looked up at the clown, her hands drawn fearfully up to her chest now. She had unwittingly pulled her knees up, too, and when Jack opened his eyes, his gaze immediately dropped to her exposed lower half.

Ruby snatched the baggy shirt's hem and drew it down to cover herself, drawing a rough laugh out of the clown.

"Modest, aren't we?" he teased, and Ruby's face flushed despite her fear. Jack's grin twisted, and his eyes took on a mischievous glint. "You know," he said slyly, "I know another game we could play."

Ruby's eyes widened in horror as the clown crawled onto the bed with her, his wicked intent clear. He gave a raspy giggle of anticipation and reached out. Ruby cringed and squeezed her eyes shut. She felt a sharp claw trace delicately up the outside of her thigh, and then the hem of her nightshirt was being lifted upward. She whimpered, and the clown gave a hoarse chuckle.

"Stay quiet or I'll bite you," he warned.

The nightshirt slid further upward, baring her thighs and hips, and Ruby clenched her jaw tightly.

A loud banging downstairs made them both jump, and Ruby cried out as Jack's sharp claws sliced into her. The banging redoubled, and then a voice was calling faintly:

" _Hello? Ruby? It's Dean. Dean from next door?"_

Ruby opened her mouth to scream, but Jack was faster. He had already procured a length of black and white scarves from his sleeve and was stuffing them in her mouth. She fought him wildly, but his long arms kept him easily out of her reach.

" _Justine wanted me to check on you. I came over earlier, but you didn't answer."_

Jack pushed the scarves further into her mouth with his fingers, and Ruby bit down as fiercely she could. The clown hissed between his teeth and yanked his fingers back. He slapped her hard enough to turn her head.

" _Is everything all right? I saw your car out front-"_

Ruby gave a muffled cry as Jack scooped an arm under her back and flipped her onto her belly. He tied her flailing arms and legs together with a separate length of scarves, then pushed off of the bed and left the room. As he rounded the doorway, a swirl of black smoke surrounded him.

Ruby stopped struggling as the front door opened. She listened intently.

"Oh! Oh, uh, there you are," Dean said, his flustered voice carrying easily throughout the high-ceilinged house. "Um. Jeez… I was about to call the police. I, uh, saw your car out front and, uh, when you didn't answer earlier I was-"

"Everything is fine," Ruby heard herself say. She almost choked on the scarves stuffed in her mouth. The voice was hers, but the accent wasn't quite right. She prayed that Dean would notice; she wasn't friends with the guy, but they had spoken enough times for him to know her voice by now.

"Oh," he was saying. "Um. Well, Justine just wanted me to check on you. Are you, uh, still here by yourself? I mean, Justine said that the kids are-"

"I have to go," came the Ruby-voice again. The door creaked as though it was being closed, but something stopped it. Dean's voice spoke again.

"Wait, wait. Uh… I need to talk to you. Can we just, like, talk for a second?"

"No. Goodbye." The door creaked again, forcibly this time, and Dean made a surprised sound. There was a _slam_ , and Ruby heard the deadbolt click hard into place. A cloud of smoke burst next to the bed, and she coughed against the sweet-smelling vapors. Jack appeared within the smoke.

Ruby let out a muffled scream as the clown planted his hands down hard on either side of her head. He leaned in close, his sweet breath puffing across her face as he spoke.

"Remember what I said about being naughty?"

Ruby stared up into her terrorizer's white face. She shook her head vehemently, pleading through the gag of scarves.

"Oh, yes," Jack said, his eyes narrowed to silver slits. "We had a deal, and I warned you."

Smoke exploded in front of her face, and she felt the bindings disappear from her arms and legs. The gag, too, vanished, leaving her to choke on sweet smoke.

" _No!"_ she screamed. "Don't hurt them, please!"

But the clown was gone.


	4. Even Naughtier

The sweet, black smoke was still lingering unnaturally along the floor, marking the place where Laughing Jack had disappeared, when Ruby snatched up her cellphone. She punched a number into it quickly, simultaneously struggling into a pair of jeans she'd found on the floor. Her thigh throbbed where Jack's claws had cut her.

The call went to voicemail, and Ruby wailed a mournful "Damn it!" She grabbed up her tennis shoes and coat, redialing the same number. Tuscaloosa was nearly an hour's drive, and maybe Jack was already there, but she would go anyway. She would call the twins' aunt until she answered, and tell her to stay with them. The clown might not show if she were around, the same way he'd seemed to stay hidden around Ruby. If he did show…

Ruby took a long knife from the kitchen and hid it inside her coat on the way out. It was no gun, but it was better than nothing.

* * *

The twins' aunt, Melanie, lived on the outskirts of Tuscaloosa in an old, Dutch colonial with peeling paint. Ruby had been there a few times to drop off and pick up the twins for slumber parties; Melanie had two daughters of her own. Emmy, the younger one, was about Zach and Zeke's age. Lauren was thirteen or so, and often babysat while Melanie was at work.

Ruby dearly hoped that wasn't the case today.

Ploughing down the dirt road to old house, Ruby caught a chug hole that rocked the car and banged her into the door. All of the nerves along her side lit up with the rough contact, and her skin began to ache like a bruise being pressed. She screamed in frustration and pain, but didn't take her foot off of the accelerator. Whatever the clown had down to her, its effects was lingering. If she moved too quickly, her head spun; if she banged into something, the wretched aching would start. Even bright light was unbearable. When she'd been on the highway earlier, the sun had come out from behind the clouds; the light made her vision spot, and she'd had to open her window and puke going nearly eighty.

Melanie's beater of a van was parked beside the house when Ruby roared up to it. She slammed the brakes, crying out when the force of the stop struck a pressure behind her eyes and flared into an ache. She dry heaved at the pain, then sat as still as she could manage while the throbbing slowly faded. The car rumbled in its idle, and Ruby carefully shifted it into park.

_Tap tap._

Ruby let out a shrill sound and jerked away from the car's window.

"Hey!" A familiar face was pressed near the window, its sparse brows furrowed. "You okay?"

Ruby gritted her teeth against the fresh pulsing that had sprung up in her elbow; she'd whacked it hard against the gear stick. She forced herself to open the window, fighting the urge to retch again.

Melanie frowned down at her. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, and she wasn't wearing any makeup. A Wal-Mart name tag poked out of her unbuttoned coat.

"Hey," she said. "I didn't know you were comin' over."

Ruby unbuckled her seat belt and turned the car off. She opened the door, and Melanie stepped back.

"You sick?" she said cautiously, moving another step back.

Ruby leaned against the car, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Her eyes went to the house, and she saw a little girl with a bowl cut standing on the porch. It was Emmy, and Zach and Zeke were standing behind her, peering out the screen door.

The relief that flooded through her almost buckled her knees.

"Sorry," she finally said to Melanie, who was eyeing her suspiciously now. "No, I'm not. I just got really car sick all of the sudden. I, uh… came to check on the boys. I tried to call. My phone was… having trouble."

"What happened to your face?"

Ruby frowned in confusion. She turned to the car and looked at her reflection in the driver's window. There was a dark bruise on her left cheek, where Jack had struck her.

"Oh," she said. She touched the spot gingerly. "I hit a chug hole earlier. Threw me into the door."

Melanie looked up at the children on the porch, then back at her. She seemed skeptical. "Well," she said. "Come on in, I guess." Understanding how strange all of this probably seemed, Ruby tried to put on a disarming smile as they walked toward the house.

"Thanks," she said. "Look, I'm sorry if you're busy. I just haven't seen the boys since yest- in a little while," she quickly corrected herself. "My phone wouldn't work, and I got worried."

"Could'a used the house phone," Melanie said, sounding somewhat vexed. "I gotta go to work in an hour."

Ruby was about to provide some sort of lie about the power being out, but jumped on Melanie's last statement. "Well, that's perfect! I can watch the kids." Melanie gave her a sour look.

"I won't be back 'til four," she said. "You can stay that long?" They started up the porch steps, and Emmy held the screen door open for them. Zach and Zeke had disappeared.

"That's fine," Ruby said, trying to peer over Melanie's shoulder and into the house. "I'd rather not stay at my house anyway."

"Thank you, baby," Melanie said to the girl. Emmy scuttled off, and Melanie closed the door. "I wouldn't want to stay at that old house by myself either," she said to Ruby. "Too big. Gives me the creeps."

Ruby followed Melanie to the cluttered little kitchen, peeking into the living room as they passed it. Emmy and the twins were sitting in a pillow fort and watching cartoons. None of them looked up at her.

"Coffee?" Melanie offered shortly, and Ruby graciously accepted. Despite having been awake for such a short while, she was exhausted. Staying alert toward the end of her nerve-shredding drive to Tuscaloosa had even been a challenge; it was as though something were sapping her energy, and Ruby didn't know if that was just an effect of whatever the clown had done to her, or something else. She didn't care to dwell on it.

"Thanks," she said, taking a stained mug from Melanie. They sat down at the craft-crowded dining table, both holding their mugs for lack of surface space.

"So." Melanie poured some creamer into her mug and stirred it. "What exactly happened? The cops couldn't tell me anything, and the kids won't talk."

Ruby's mug stopped halfway to her lips. She looked at Melanie, who was deeply focused on stirring her creamer, and wondered what she could say that wouldn't sound crazy.

"Somebody broke in."

Melanie put the creamer down and looked at her. "Yeah?

"Yeah," Ruby said. She took a sip of her coffee; it burned her tongue and left a tingling patch on the tip. She winced at the ache that followed.

"What, that's it? Come on, what happened?" Melanie pushed. "I'm feedin' two extra kids 'cuz of this. What _happened?"_

"A guy broke in," Ruby said again, refusing to give any more detail. She didn't know how much Melanie had truly gathered from the police. "I called the cops. They couldn't find him."

"Huh," Melanie said. She took a swig of her coffee and shook her head disgustedly. "You know, that's ridiculous," she said. "Calling the cops don't do anything. I had the same thing happen to me. A couple boys tried to get in my van one time, and-"

Ruby heard the floorboards creak softly behind her, and she turned her head.

Laughing Jack stood in the doorway.

Ruby stood abruptly, bumping the table and dropping her coffee. The mug shattered on the floor.

"Jesus!" Melanie said.

Jack walked close and sat in the open chair beside Ruby.

"Stay put," he said when she made to move away.

"The hell's wrong with you?" Melanie said. Ruby looked from the clown to Melanie, who was scowling deeply at her. Melanie didn't seem to notice the seven-foot tall clown sitting in her kitchen, and didn't so much as bat an eye when he spoke again.

"You should clean that up," he said to Ruby.

"I-" Ruby struggle to vocalize. She looked back and forth from the clown to Melanie. Melanie finally flipped her hand dismissively and went to get a dish rag. Ruby stood rooted to the spot. Her hip flared with pain where she'd hit the table's edge.

"Here," Melanie said, stopping right in front of Jack to hand Ruby the rag. Jack giggled roughly as Ruby took the rag in her trembling hands.

"Barmpot," he teased.

Ruby didn't take her eyes off of him as she knelt to mop up the coffee, even when the wound on her leg stung and Melanie resumed talking to her. The knife was heavy in her coat pocket.

"So, you're still shaken up about all that, huh?" Melanie said, sitting back down. "Musta been scary as hell. You sure you can stay? Like I said, I don't get off 'til four."

Ruby began collecting shards of the mug. Jack winked and pushed a few of them in her direction with the tip of his shoe.

"Yeah," she said, still watching the clown. She stood carefully and tossed the pieces into the trashcan. "Yeah, I can stay."

"Sit down," Jack said when she lingered by the trashcan. Ruby hesitated until the clown's eyes began to go wide with temper.

"Okay," Melanie grumbled as Ruby slid stiffly back onto her chair beside Jack. "You takin' the boys back when you leave?"

"I don't know."

"No," said Jack.

"Well, you ought to," Melanie said. She pointed accusingly at Ruby. "My Emmy's been havin' nightmares, and that didn't start 'til the boys," she pointed in the direction of the living room, "got here. I think Zeke's been scarin' her."

Ruby struggled to keep her eyes on Melanie as Jack shifted to rest his ankle on his knee. He hummed "Pop! Goes the Weasel" loudly to himself.

"Yeah?" was all that Ruby could manage. Her gaze flicked to Jack, and the clown grinned mischievously at her.

"Yeah," Melanie said. She narrowed her eyes. "She keeps talkin' about a clown with sharp teeth. Now, she don't watch scary movies. I don't know what you let those boys do-"

Ruby jumped as Jack rested a hand on her thigh, his long fingers sliding round to encircle her whole limb. He grazed the side of his thumb gently over the cut he'd made this morning.

"Tell her you won't take the brats," he said, his deep voice carrying over Melanie's. "Otherwise, they could get hurt. You don't want that, do you?"

"- but I won't have any of that in my house. Kids shouldn't be-" Ruby cut Melanie off as Jack pressured his thumb lightly against the wound.

"I can't take them home," she said quickly. Melanie raised her non-existent eyebrows, then drew them down so hard that her eyes almost disappeared.

"Well, you got to," she said. "I can't keep feedin' two extra kids, and Emmy's wet the bed twice-"

Ruby bit back a cry as Jack pressed his thumb claw into the cut. A dark spot welled quickly around it, staining her jeans.

"I can't take them!" she shouted, stunning the other woman into silence. Jack stopped worming his claw into the cut, but left it hovering threateningly. "I'm sorry, but I can't. I just can't."

A long, quiet moment passed between them, and Jack let go of her leg to stand up. As he made to leave the room, he leaned down to her and whispered against her ear in a way that made all of her hair stand on end:

"Good girl."

Ruby took a deep breath, sweat beading on her brow as she listened to the clown's retreating footsteps. "I can't take them," she told Melanie again. "The person who broke in... He was in the boys' room when I woke up. I'm afraid he might-" her voice broke, and she had to pause. "I'm afraid he might hurt them," she finished in a whisper.

Melanie stayed quiet for a moment. "Well, I can't afford to keep 'em," she said.

"I can give you some money. I'll feed everybody tonight, too." Ruby stood up slowly, using the table for support and carefully shielding her now-bleeding leg from Melanie's view with her coat. Melanie stood up, too.

"Well," she said. She looked down at her coffee mug. "I guess that's all right. But tell Zeke to quit scarin' my girl."

Ruby agreed to have a talk with Zeke, and Melanie went about getting ready for work. The twins weren't in the living room, but Emmy was. She was eating dry cereal out of a cup when Ruby approached her.

"Hey, Emmy," she said, and the girl looked up. "Where did Zach and Zeke go?" Emmy blinked and turned her head toward the front door. Ruby took the hint and stepped outside.

Dark, dense clouds had swallowed the sky up again, and thunder rumbled ominously. Ruby scanned the weed-choked yard for the twins.

"Zeke!" she called. "Zach!" She waited on the porch for a moment, but got no answer. She struggled down the steps, hissing as her bleeding leg pulsed and ached, and limped a circle around the house. She wandered out near the old, rotting fence, and childish voices finally reached her.

"Boys?" she said, spotting two mops of red hair in the tall grass. One of the mops perked up, and she saw Zach's face. She picked her way through the grass.

"Hey, what're you doing?" she said. The boys were crouched down, clearly hiding. Ruby worriedly thought for a moment that they were hiding from Jack, and that she'd ratted them out.

"Go away," Zeke said acidly, and she blinked in surprise.

"Why?" she finally managed. "What's wrong?" She turned from Zeke to Zach, who was purposely staring at his little tennis shoes and pressing his lips together. She crouched down, despite the pain it caused, and moved close to him.

"Baby, what's wrong?" she pleaded, and Zach shifted away from her. He mumbled something, still avoiding looking at her. Zeke, however, gave her the nastiest glare she'd ever seen a child give to another person.

"We're not supposed to talk to you," he said, and Ruby frowned.

"Why not?" she asked, though she already had an idea.

"Because Laughing Jack said so." Zeke stopped pulling up dry grass clumps and glared at her again. He started to say something else, but then his eyes fell to Ruby's coat pocket.

He screamed.

Ruby raised her hands to protect herself as Zeke launched at her. He tore at her coat, and Ruby yelled at him to stop. The knife was in there, and-

"That's mine!" Zeke howled, clawing at a different pocket. Ruby held him back, struggling to keep him from swinging at her, and as they struggled something fell out of her pocket.

"No! That's mine! That's _mine!"_

Ruby squeezed Zeke to her, pinning his arms at his sides, and looked at the faded box that had fallen out of her coat. Her skin crawled.

"Mine!" Zeke wailed. He thrashed in Ruby's arms, trying desperately to hit her. Ruby held him until he tired himself out and started to cry.

"Did Jack give you the box?" she whispered to him. Zeke hiccuped, tears running down his freckled cheeks. He nodded miserably.

"What does the box mean?" Ruby asked desperately. She looked around herself, praying that Jack wasn't near. She couldn't see him, but, for all she knew, he was standing over them.

"He said _-hic-_ I could live at the _-hic-_ carnival…"

"Where's the carnival?"

Zeke sniveled. He shrugged his little shoulders, then shifted in her grip until he had his face pressed into her coat. Zach made a mournful sound, and Ruby realized that he was crying, too. He crawled over, and she gathered him into her arms alongside Zeke.

They sat like that until they heard Melanie's van chug to a start.

Lightning flashed as Ruby picked up the faded box and stuffed it into her pocket. She carried Zeke and held Zach's hand as they walked back around the house in time to wave at Melanie as she drove away.

Ruby waited until the van turned onto the country road before walking over to her own car. Emmy was standing on the porch with her cup of cereal, and Ruby ushered the boys to go stand with her. She took the faded box from her pocket, then positioned it carefully beneath the car.

Zeke sobbed as she crushed it under her back tire.

* * *

Miles away, in a rundown apartment, Laughing Jack stopped dressing a doll to turn his head and look out the window. His silver eyes widened, and the dirty-faced girl he was playing with stopped smiling and stared at him.

"What's wrong, Jack?" she asked. It was a long moment before he replied, somewhat gruffly:

"Nothing." He turned back to the game, clutching a blonde-headed girl doll in his dreadful claws. His playmate scooted closer to him and straightened his doll's hair with a tiny brush.

"It's okay," she said softly to him. "You can tell me secrets."

Jack ignored her and stared at the doll. His playmate had no toys of her own, and so he had fashioned these for her. The doll in his claws was a careful recreation of Ruby.

The little girl finished brushing the Ruby doll's hair and, on a whim, reached up to brush the clown's. As the tiny brush touched his hair, the change that came over him was instantaneous and horrifying; his white face twisted, his eyes flashed, and his black lips peeled back to expose all of his jagged teeth. The little girl fell backward with a shriek just as his jaws snapped shut, missing her hand by hardly an inch. She crawled quickly away from him and hid behind her bed, whimpering.

Jack bared his teeth and leaned forward on his wicked claws, watching her like a cat with a cornered mouse. It took him a moment to realize what he was doing, and he tried to play it off as a joke.

"Haha… Sorry, sugar. I was just playing. I didn't mean to scare you."

The little girl peered distrustfully at him, her eyes shiny with fear.

Jack sat back and picked up the Ruby doll again. He found the tiny hairbrush and held it out to the girl. "Here," he said soothingly. "I've mussed my doll's hair. Will you fix it for me?"

The girl shook her head, and Jack felt a pang of panic. He had just started to earn the child's trust.

"Oh, come now," he tried again. "I'm no good at fixing hair. See?" He shook his own mass of tangled, black locks, and the girl gave a soft giggle.

"Your hair _is_ messy," she admitted.

He relaxed.

"It sure is," Jack said. He put the doll down to reach into his pocket and, pushing the faded box out of the way, produced a handful of colorful candies in paper wrappers. The girl saw them and crept back over to their spread of dolls.

"I wasn't really scared," she assured him, carefully taking several of the candies. "You're my friend." As she popped one in her mouth, Jack smiled, careful to not show his teeth.

"Of course I am, sweets."


	5. Dessert First

Ruby leaned heavily on the arm of the country chic armchair. It was a ratty old thing; it smelled thickly of cigarette smoke, the backrest was lumpy, the arms had pilling up and down them, and the seat cushion had a ragged hole in it where Melanie's mean old Yorkshire, Binky, had chewed it open long ago.

Yet, it could have been a velvet chaise to Ruby's exhausted body.

She sank further into the chewed cushion, though she knew she should sit up, and struggled to say focused on the TV across the room. A coffee mug dangled from her fingers, empty but still warm to the touch. She needed to refill it again.

A shrill giggling made her start, and her hand went to the knife inside her coat.

"Eww!" Emmy said, giggling again as Zeke grinned and put a second marshmallow in other nostril. Ruby let go of the knife.

"Baby, don't do that," she said, and Zeke looked back at her. He took the marshmallows out and went back to watching the movie.

It hadn't been difficult to keep the children in the living room where they could be watched (and protected); all Ruby had had to do was open a bag of marshmallows and pop in "The Lion King" tape she'd found sitting on the VCR. The movie was almost over, though, and she would need to put in something else.

Coffee first.

Grunting, she heaved herself out of the chair sideways; her thigh had stopped bleeding, but it still burned whenever she moved. Emmy turned around to look at her.

"Can we watch 'The Little Mermaid?'" she asked.

"No!" Zach and Zeke groaned in unison. Ruby grimaced as the beginnings of a headache pulsed at her temple, and she held up her hands to quell the boys' protests. She pointed at the VHS rack against the wall.

"All of you," she said, "pick something together. I'll be right back. Stay in _this room."_ She pointed at the carpet. "Don't go anywhere else." The children crawled quickly for the tapes, squabbling over what to watch next, and Ruby left the room.

"I _hate_ that movie," Zeke's voice carried as she stepped cautiously into the kitchen. The winter sun had already set, and the only source lighting the room was the small night-light above the kitchen sink. She tried the light switches by the doorway, but overhead fixture stayed dark. Her hand settled inside her coat.

"It's my house! They're my movies!"

Ruby crept over to the coffee pot, listening as Emmy tried to make a case for "The Little Mermaid." The boys were having none of it, though.

"Ruby said we all get to pick," Zach said. VHS boxes shuffled around. "I don't wanna watch that one."

"Yeah!" Zeke said.

Ruby poured the last of the coffee, her eyelids drooping in the comfortable dimness of the kitchen. The children continued their bickering in the living room, but their voices were sounding further and further away. That was all right; she had a headache. Ruby let the coffee pot rest on the edge of the countertop, her eyes almost shut. God, she couldn't remember ever being tired like this. She was so tired that her head _felt_ _heavy._

The coffee pot ground warningly against the countertop's edge, and Ruby came to with a jerk. She was putting the pot into the sink to wash when a scream made her drop it entirely. She reached frantically for the knife and ran toward the living room.

"Zeke, stop it!" Emmy screamed. "My sister'll beat you up!"

"She's not even here!" Zeke taunted.

Ruby opened her mouth to call for Zeke, to tell them not to scream like that again, when a hand slapped across her mouth. Her feet came off the floor as she was lifted around the waist by a vise-like arm, and then she was being carried back toward the dimly-lit kitchen.

"Stay quiet," her assailant growled, and as he did, the smell of sweet smoke filled her nose. Feathers brushed her cheek. Ruby struggled wildly to free the knife from her coat pocket, but the arm around her waist was pinning it tight.

"Mmph!" she grunted, feeling the blade poke through the fabric. It nicked her side, and she tried to squirm away from it. Laughing Jack squeezed her harder, a warning to hold still, and she did.

They reached the kitchen, and Ruby let out a weak cry as she was tossed bodily to the vinyl floor. She landed on her stomach, and it knocked the breath out of her. The knife made a metallic, clattering sound as it slid out of her coat and across the floor.

"Well, well," Jack said. "What's this?" He stepped over to the knife and took it in his claws. Ruby looked fearfully up at him, wheezing for air, as he crouched beside her and dangled the knife tauntingly. Her blood stained the tip of it.

"Eager to play?" he asked, his coarse voice sending a bone-deep chill through her body. His inhuman eyes flashed deviously, and, as Ruby watched, he lifted the knife to his mouth and ran his black, oil-slick of a tongue across the blade's tip.

Ruby pushed herself upright and scooted away from the clown, too afraid to notice that her contact with the floor had not caused a crippling ache. Jack gave a low, multi-toned chuckle, and then his white face grew frighteningly serious.

"Explain something to me, sweets," he said, setting the knife down. He reached into his pocket and withdrew something to place carefully on the floor between them. Ruby's eyes darted from the clown's face to the object. Her lips parted in disbelief.

It was the faded box. Not splinters of the box, the way she'd left it under her car tire, but the full box itself. It was perfectly in-tact and precisely the way it had been when she'd received it, down to the crooked music crank.

"Did you truly believe that was going to work?" Jack asked. "That you could be done with me, just like that?" Ruby looked back up at the clown and trembled. His eyes were wide, and his lips were peeled back to show his teeth. He leaned forward, claws scraping gouges across the floor.

"You'll never be done with me, sweets," he hissed. _"You belong to me."_

Ruby pressed back against the cabinets as Jack crawled toward her, his face looking less and less human the closer he got. By the time he was near enough to plant his hands heavily on either side of her head, his horrible jaws seemed to hold a dozen more teeth. He brought his face close to hers as though to bite her.

"Ruby!"

Ruby twisted her head toward the kitchen doorway, eyes wide with horror. Emmy appeared around it, holding "The Little Mermaid" tape in her tiny hands.

"They're gonna play Legos now, so can we watch-" She froze when she caught sight of Jack, hunched over Ruby like a monstrous spider. The clown had turned to look at her, too. He breathed a low hiss.

Ruby and Emmy screamed at once when Jack shoved off of the cabinets to lunge for the child. Emmy dropped the tape and tried to run, but the clown was fast; he caught her easily by the arm and dragged her, squealing, toward him.

" _No!"_ Ruby shrieked. She scrambled for the discarded knife and snatched it up.

Emmy kicked and screamed as Jack held her above his head. His jaw gave a sickening series of pops, unhinging itself and growing wide enough to swallow the child whole. He chuckled, rolling his tongue out.

Ruby darted up behind him and stabbed the knife between his shoulder blades, right above the giant pull-string's beginning.

Jack let out a monstrous, multi-toned roar as the knife sank into him. He dropped Emmy to the floor and whirled around to face Ruby. She had enough time to blink before he lashed out savagely with an arm, catching her directly in the temple. She collapsed in an unconscious heap, sliding a few feet into the cabinets.

Jack reached behind himself and took hold of the knife's handle. The blade slid out easily, if painfully, and he hissed through his teeth. Black blood spattered the floor as he flung it away.

The girl-child had fled after he'd dropped her, and so he was left alone with his toy. He could hear the children crying softly in the living room. His hate and anger, spurred by the pain of the knife wound, flared madly, and he debated hammering all three of the brats to the living room walls. The idea was deliciously tempting, and he knew it would soothe him…

But there was the matter of his toy.

Jack stood, flexing the pain out of his back as the wound knitted itself closed, and stalked over to Ruby's unconscious form. He ran his tongue along his black lips, remembering the taste of her blood. She would be devastated to find her precious boys dead, and her pain would be unimaginably beautiful, but then what? Her fear was made as strong as it was because of the brats. If he were to kill them, she might change, lose fear for even herself. He'd seen humans do that after they'd lost something dear to them.

That wouldn't do.

Ruby stirred vaguely as Jack scooped her into his arms. He was angry with her, for his healing knife wound still throbbed and burned, but he forced himself to be gentle with her anyway. He carried her, cradled against his chest, out of the kitchen and through the living room. The children quailed inside their pillow fort as he stopped to peer at them, his silver eyes huge. His voice was deep and rough when he spoke.

"Stay in there, or I'll eat you."

The children hid under blankets as he carried his toy into the nearest bedroom and kicked the door shut. He placed her on the narrow bed, righting her limbs to lie straight, then climbed in beside her. She stirred again as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her to him, enjoying the heat that she produced. He made no heat of his own, and had no need of it, but it was pleasant to him nonetheless.

Though she didn't know it right now, she was hurting badly from where he'd hit her. He took a deep draught of her pain, his nose brushing over the bruised and swelled skin of her face. She twitched.

Perhaps she did know.

Jack hooked a long leg around hers, drawing her closer and coiling tight as a serpent. He knew when she started to wake more by the presence of her fear than her movements. Her fear was fantastic, sweeter than any candy he'd ever tasted, but he was fully aware of how it filled him in a distinctly different way than a child's. Her fear was dessert to him, exquisitely tempting and delicious, but children's fear was what sustained him. It always had been, and it always would be.

His eyes flashed in the dark as they sought the door. He could hear the children sniveling and whispering to one another.

"Uhh," Ruby groaned, twisting in his grip, and he looked at her. Her head turned, putting her face-to-face with him. The room was too dark for her human eyes to see him, even this close, but he knew she could smell him.

"Shh," he hushed when her eyes grew wide. Her fear spiked so hard that he couldn't suppress a shudder. "Sleep," he whispered. "We're going to play tomorrow."

"What did you do to-" she began, her eyes welling with tears.

"Nothing. Listen."

She trembled against him, but he could tell by the way her eyes sightlessly ticked around that she was listening for and could hear the children in the living room. Her muscles loosened almost imperceptibly, then tightened again.

"They're crying," she whispered hoarsely. Jack made an irritated sound in the back of his throat.

"They're fine," he insisted. "Now, I'm _hungry_ , and I want you to sleep." His toy gave a whimper, wriggling a little in his grasp, and he knew that she'd misunderstood him.

"Please, don't hurt them! They're just kids-"

He scowled, his arms constricting hard enough to make the girl gasp. He put his mouth next to her face, purposely letting her feel his teeth scrape against her temple when he spoke. She cringed.

"I know what they are," he hissed. "And I'll do worse than hurt them if you don't shut up and _sleep_."

His toy went very still, saying nothing more, and Jack sullenly buried his face in her hair. Her attachment to the wretches was useful, but it stoked his temper. He closed his eyes and began to feed, finding the action immediately soothing. He took one slow, deep breath at a time, like a man taking careful bites of a savory meal.

Jack didn't expect to feed for long; he knew that her fear would subside when exhaustion took her. A half-hour passed, however, and then another, and the fear remained present. She was wide awake in his clutches, her eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, and Jack realized that she wouldn't sleep without his intervention.

Not unless he left her be, which he wouldn't do.

He could feel her shallow breathing against him, the chilled sweat on her skin. She was still terrified. He knew that he could sap the energy right out of her if he fed long enough like this, but then she would be tired tomorrow. He needed to put her right out if he wanted her to get any rest at all.

She gasped as he shifted abruptly, drawing himself up over her. Her arms were freed in this new position, and she thrust them up against his chest.

"No," she cried, her fear spiking again and sending another shudder through him. He fought the sensation and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She struggled under him, pushing at his chest and crying. Her fear heightened further, leaving him in a near constant state of shuddering, but it was nothing compared to sensation that shot through him when he covered her open mouth with his own.

The sheer power of her fear made him _growl_.

His cold lips moved against hers in a cruel mockery of a kiss as she snatched hold of his hair and yanked, trying to pull him away. Her desperation struck a realization in him, and his mind found darker territory as he considered doing exactly what she thought he was about to do.

Some other time.

He yanked her hair in kind, drawing a muffled cry out of her, and then sucked in an inhumanly deep breath. His toy shivered hard, her fingers curling tightly in his hair as he forcibly drained every bit of energy from her body. He saw her eyes roll back in her head, felt her moan the last of her consciousness into his mouth, and then she was limp.

Jack pulled away, shivering himself as he attempted to process everything he'd drawn from her. His body thrummed violently with energy, but it wasn't energy that he could use. Instead of being absorbed, it pulsed along his skin like an electric charge, made him see spots and caused his mind to float. It was almost painful, and he'd never experienced anything like it.

When the energy faded many minutes later, drifting naturally wherever it was meant to go, Jack found that he had somehow dispersed himself to smoke. He drifted aimlessly for a moment, then coiled lazily to the floor and solidified into the form of the faded box.


End file.
